Court jails Yongyuth's wife

The Supreme Court yesterday sentenced the wife of former House Speaker Yongyuth Tiyapairat to a suspended two and a half years in prison and banned her from politics for ten years.

The court found Saluckjicht Tiyapairat guilty of giving false information in connection with a local administration assembly election in Chiang Rai province in 2006.

The court said in its ruling that Saluckjicht, the incumbent chief of the Chiang Rai Provincial Administration Organisation (PAO), provided false information during the registration of her candidacy in the provincial assembly election in Chiang Rai.

The court handed down a five-year imprisonment verdict on Saluckjicht; but with regard to her past good deeds, the court commuted the sentence by half - to two years and six months in prison.

However, she was given a two-year probation for the prison term. She was also banned from politics for 10 years, and fined Bt50,000.

The Election Commission in Chiang Rai will hold a re-election for the chief of PAO within 60 days.

Yongyuth, who was deputy leader of the now defunct People Power Party, was found guilty previously of electoral fraud concerning the 2007 general election. These charges led to the party dissolution by the verdict of the Constitutional Court in 2008. He was also barred from politics for five years. His ban term ended in December 2013.